


The Johnny Cash Variations

by Tesserae



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M, Stargate Atlantis AU: Vegas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-30 22:33:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tesserae/pseuds/Tesserae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Colonel Cameron Mitchell, sheriff of Esmeralda County, Nevada, has a routine. Once in a while it involves his former CO, General Hank Landry. It almost never involves mysterious strangers or alien invasions. Cam has always thought this was a feature, not a bug, but he’s starting to wonder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Johnny Cash Variations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [colls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/colls/gifts).



> Written for the 2012 John/Cam Thing-a-thon at [Sg-Flyboys](http://sg-flyboys.livejournal.com/).

**(Goldfield, Nevada, present day)**

Colonel Cameron Mitchell, USAF (Ret.) and current sheriff of Esmeralda County, Nevada, has a routine.

Most mornings, it involves coffee and his complimentary copy of the _Esmeralda County Register_ , out on the porch if the weather’s fine and indoors on the euphemistically-titled breakfast bar the other three months of the year. Cam doesn’t think anyone, least of all him, should start their drinking at breakfast, but that’s what the real estate lady called it when she sold him the place a few years back.

Occasionally, it involves fielding a call from one of the women who take the calls at the 911 center, or whoever’s got dispatch duty. On those mornings, Cam’s glad he never lost the Air Force habit of waking up with the dawn light – those calls are never good news.

Once in a very great while, the pins in his hips slow him down, which means he doesn’t get to the phone before the machine picks it up. When that happens, he’ll listen for a bit before picking up the handset. Cam’s got a healthy respect for the conveniences of modern technology, especially when it keeps him from having to talk to the guy at the bank who wants to refinance his mortgage. This morning, though, it’s neither his dispatcher nor his banker.

It’s his former commanding officer, Major General Henry Landry (Ret.). Cam hopes that whatever’s Landry’s got in mind includes a boat, and fish, and maybe a maybe a bottle of excellent scotch. Hell, if Landry’s coming his way, he might even break the no-booze-at-the-breakfast-bar rule.

“Hank!” he says cheerfully, tucking the phone against his shoulder and reaching up into the cabinet above the refrigerator for the cereal. Peering doubtfully at the box, which shows a drawing of people who seem far too happy for folks condemned to eat the shredded wood chips he knows are inside it, he puts the box down and opens the fridge to look for the milk.

Which is about the point where General Landry’s words start to penetrate his pre-caffeine fog.

He sets the milk down on the counter with exaggerated care. “You want me to _what_?”

“I want you to come down to Vegas, son. Today. Now, in fact.” Landry’s voice has acquired a kindly-old-uncle rumble, but the steel underneath isn’t sounding any rustier. He squares his shoulders and then relaxes them. _Retired_ , dammit.

“Sorry, sir, I can’t do that.” He really can’t. He’s got one deputy out on maternity leave, one at home recovering from getting his wisdom teeth out – Cam hopes it helps loosen up a little actual wisdom in Freddie, but he’s not holding his breath – and the remaining one may or may not be sober by the time his shift starts. Cam would fire the second two if he didn’t suspect they’d never get new jobs, which isn’t a very good reason, all in all. A better one is that he’d have to do it all himself, and he really doesn’t want to.

There’s a bass rumble on the phone and Cam winces and shifts the phone to his other ear. “I’m sorry, sir, what was that?”

“You don’t have to call me _sir_ , Mitchell, I’m not your CO anymore.”

Just barely, Cam refrains from saying _yes, sir_ and dumps a handful of the woodchips into a coffee cup. He pours milk over them, forgoes adding any sugar, and turns on his coffee maker. Grabbing the mug of cereal, he heads over to the doors that lead out onto his deck, and gazes out at the desert.

Esmeralda County is mining country, rocky and dry. Cam, somewhat to his surprise, likes it here, likes the sharp-edged, copper-stained mountains, so different from the rolling Kansas prairie his parents still live on, likes the vast blue sweep of the sky. He likes the quiet, too: most weeks the only crime he deals with is the petty bullshit that happens whenever testosterone and too much cheap beer hit a flashpoint and someone ends up making the intimate acquaintance of Cam’s drunk tank.

He steps out onto the deck, lowers himself into a chair and sets the mug down before turning his attention back to Landry. “I know that, Hank. But it sure sounds like you’re calling with a new set of orders.”

There’s a long wheezing sigh on the other end of the phone, and Cam steels himself for what’s coming. It took a few years before he stopped listening for this phone call, running excuses in his head at half past fuck in the morning, tossing and turning and watching the light creep in around the bedroom curtains. None of it ever would’ve worked, he reminds himself. Good thing Landry never called with anything more serious than an invitation to go assassinate a few fish. Until now.

“I know you’re short-handed, son. You think you could get that girl of yours in for a few days? I could really use your help here.”

Cam winces. _Girl_? “Val’s on maternity leave, Hank. Pretty sure she could still take out the local criminal population with the power of thought, but Doc’s got her on bed rest.” Val, whip-smart and better at marksmanship than Cam, could probably figure out how to run the state from a Skype connection, but he’s not interested in sharing that bit of info with the general.

General Landry doesn’t say anything.

Cam picks up a heaping spoonful of his milk-sodden woodchips and shoves it into his mouth. He chews for a while and swallows noisily. The coffeemaker chirps at him from inside the house. “Let me ask her,” he says finally. He hopes that whatever it is he’ll get to stay on the ground. Cam likes the ground these days.

“The car’s outside,” Landry says. “How much time do you need to get dressed?” Cam punches the button to hang up the phone, picks up his cereal mug and flings it out into the desert.

God dammit, he thinks, he’s retired.

*

Back inside the house, Cam throws on a pair of khakis and a white button-down, grabbing his leather jacket and dopp kit at the last minute. It’s six hours down to Vegas, unless there’s a helicopter sitting in the parking lot at the mine, and that means two days minimum. Cam’s not above charging the Air Force for an extra pair of boxers but he’s attached to his own toothbrush, thank you very much.

The SUV parked out in front of his house is large and jet black and, if Cam’s not mistaken, _armored_ , and when he steps out onto his porch and ostentatiously locks the door behind himself, it disgorges two equally impenetrable-looking men in black BDUs sporting earpieces and mirrored shades.

“Hello, boys,” he says cheerfully. “Great day for a drive, isn’t it?”

They glance at each other, and one of them nods. “Colonel.” He pulls open the passenger side door and puts out a hand for Cam’s bag.

Cam hoists it off his shoulder. “Now, careful with that. There’s a box of cupcakes in there for the general and I don’t want them to get crushed.”

“Sir.” The bag is gingerly lifted out of Cam’s hand and conveyed toward the back of the vehicle. Cam gazes after it for a moment, sighs, and climbs up into the SUV. Once there, he settles easily into the wide leather seat and pulls the seatbelt around his chest, anchoring it firmly. After six years cleaning wrecks off the downtown Goldfield stretch of I-95, he’s got a healthy respect for seatbelts.

There’s a slam as the back door of the SUV is closed, and then both of his escorts are belting themselves into their seats. Escort A touches a keypad, briefly, and the truck starts up with a larger-than-V8 roar. Cam glances down at the dash. The speedometer only reads to 175mph, but he’s pretty sure, from the sound of the engine, that it can go a touch faster than that. “Nice wheels.”

“Not a patch on the 302s, sir,” Escort A murmurs, “but our ETA is about three hours.”

“To Vegas?” What, do they need the extra juice for wings? Even he doesn’t take I-95, with its long deserted straightaways, at much over eighty. “Should I bring a ticket book? My budget can use all the help you boys want to give it.”

“Not going to Vegas, sir.” Escort A pushes his sunglasses further up his nose, settling them firmly against his face, and puts the SUV into reverse. He pulls a quick three-point turn and noses down Cam’s driveway and out onto the narrow road without looking left or right. Another glance at the dash shows Cam small video readouts from what must be side-mounted cameras.

 _Sweet_ he thinks, and then looks up, startled. “But General Landry said—“ he trails off, thinking about the not quite casual reference to the 302 program, and in that instant, he knows where they’re headed. “No, he didn’t say, did he? We’re going to Groom Lake.”

Escort A grins at him and accelerates. In the rearview mirror, he can see Escort B relax infinitesimally, as if he’d been waiting for something more subtle than a hiking boot to drop.

“Got it in one, sir,” he says, and lifts his shades. His eyes are a deep, piercing blue, and Cam’s pretty sure he should know the name that’s not stitched onto his BDUs. “How long’s it been since you were back at Area 51?”

Cam lets out a breath and settles back into his seat. He’s curious about whatever it is Landry’s pulling him into, especially now that it doesn’t mean a trip to Vegas. Curious, and maybe a bit relieved. Just a bit, though, and not for any of the standard reasons. Cam doesn’t gamble, he likes his whiskey neat and preferably poured into one of his own glasses, and it’s been a long time since he’s had any interest in showgirls, even for their dancing.

No, it’s the Vegas PD Cam wants to avoid. Which is probably stupid, and if Val were here, she’d smack him just to make the point. After all, how hard is it to avoid cops, even if you are one? He’s not planning to hold up a Seven-Eleven, and he’s damn sure the boys in the band don’t plan to break any major traffic laws. Cam’s entirely sure he could spend two whole days in as Vegas and not see any LVPD cops, not even once. Las Vegas is big, after all, and there aren’t that many uniforms on the force. There are even fewer detectives, as Cam well knows.

The fact that it’s really just _one_ detective in particular is too embarrassing to think about. Cam’s forty, after all, not thirteen. Plenty old enough to call a guy, ask him out for a beer. If, say, he’d gotten the guy’s phone number while they were still at the phone-number-getting stage.

Or if, maybe, they hadn’t skipped past the phone numbers entirely on their way to the trading handjobs stage.

Or something. Cam straightens up, looks out the tinted windows at the mountains shimmering through the heat. The back of his neck itches and there’s a buzz of discomfort settling into his bad hip, and he wonders if he hadn’t been looking forward to Vegas and the chance, however slim, to see John Sheppard again.

Hey, at least they hadn’t skipped past the names step. That _would_ have been embarrassing, even though Sheppard checked out long before the city lights came back into view.

 

*

**(Las Vegas, six months earlier)**

“You said this would be _fun_.” He could hear the whiny note creeping into his voice. So, apparently, could his second-in-command, Deputy Vala Mal Doran, Val to him and (probably) her husband Tom, _ma’am_ to everyone else at the Esmeralda County sheriff’s department. And probably to most of the civilian population as well – Val just had that effect on people.

“It will be fun, Mitchell,” she said in between slurps of iced coffee. “Just make sure everyone can read your nametag and don’t leave your credit card with the bartender.”

There was a story there, one he was almost sure he didn’t want to hear. “You sure you booked me a room?” he asked her, more to change the subject than because he had any doubt she did.

“Of course I did, boss. Once you hit the hotel, keep going – there should be a trailer park on the —“

“Don’t you have a dangerous criminal to catch?”

“Nope, they’re all on their way to Vegas. More points when you hold up a liquor store in front of every police chief in the state.”

Cam looked gloomily at his phone, then up at the enormous hotels lining both sides of Las Vegas Boulevard. The conference was at the MGM Grand, three days of shop talk and pitches for gear his tiny budget can’t even think about stretching to cover. And drunk cops – lots of drunk cops.

“You might have a point there,” he said, brightening. “Look, Val, call if you need anything.”

“I will, Mitchell. And remember - _fun_.”

Two hours later his county-issued Jeep Cherokee had been handed over to a sweating teen in a fancy uniform and Cam was checked into a room high enough up that he could see past the city lights to the long spine of the mountains to the west. He thought about showering, weighing it against grabbing a beer in one of the bars he’d seen downstairs as he wheeled his bag through the casino.

The beer won. The conference didn’t start until the next morning, and none of his colleagues would notice if he were less than daisy-fresh anyways. On his way out of the room, Cam slipped his room key into his wallet and hit the switch that closed the curtains partway. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but sometime since the last time he’d been to this thing it had upscaled: no more Holiday Inns or Best Westerns, and definitely no more Hooters. Thank the ghost of Tailhook for that, Cam supposed, and made a note to ask Val if she wanted to go next year. It’d be good for her, a chance to charm the crap out of someone who could do more for her career than he could.

Downstairs, the casino was starting to fill with people. Cam headed for the lounge he’d seen and snagged the last seat, a stool at the bar. He hitched himself up onto it and ordered an Sierra Nevada when the bartender glanced over at him. After it came, gleaming golden in its frozen glass, the man on the stool next to him turned his head and shot Cam an amused look.

“You know that’s not local.”

Cam caught a glimpse of unruly black hair, bright hazel eyes and a white button-down shirt with its sleeves rolled up to show lean, muscular forearms. He glanced down at the man’s hands, long-fingered under their dusting of black hair and wrapped a little too tightly around a heavy glass of what looked liked whiskey. “I sure hope that’s not local either, or I’ll have to revise my opinion of your taste,” he replied, letting a bit of the drawl he normally fought edge into his voice. The stranger, whoever he was, had the kind of stern dark beauty Cam had learned to mostly avoid, both in the Air Force and afterwards, as incompatible with his own peace of mind.

He tipped his glass toward the man. “To imports.”

The man lifted his glass and gravely tapped it against Cam’s. “To imports,” he agreed, and drained it, gesturing toward the bartender. “Want one?”

Cam took a sip of his ale, feeling the fizz from the alcohol spread out under his skin and settle into his belly. He glanced at the bottle the bartender was holding out, a respectable single malt he’d seen at the roadhouse back in Goldfield, souvenir of the last silver boom, probably, and shook his head. “Conference tomorrow,” he said, apologetically. “Hard enough staying awake for those things when I stick to beer.”

“Your loss.” The man emptied his glass in one gulp, slammed it back on the bar and slid off his stool. “Perhaps I’ll see you around,” he added, and then hesitated.

Cam swung around and put a hand on his arm.

The man glanced down at Cam’s hand, and Cam fought the urge to tighten it. “Wait. I don’t even know your name.” _Vegas_ , he reminded himself a little desperately, and the moment stretched out between them, the shriek and rumble of the casino’s slot machines, the buzz of the bar, ice and glassware and too-loud laughter muted somehow. Finally, just at the point where Cam had started to wish someone would pull a fire alarm or win a jackpot, anything to break the tension, there was a flurry of laughter and someone crashed into the man from behind, hard enough to push him practically into Cam’s lap.

“Well, that wasn’t quite the distraction I was thinking of, but I’ll take it,” he murmured, bracing himself on the bar. The girl moved away, apologizing.

The man took a half-step back. “I’m Sheppard, by the way.” He smiled faintly, glancing around at the crowd. “You sure you don’t want that scotch, maybe someplace quieter?”

Cam slid off his stool. Maybe he was going to get his mulligan after all. “Staying awake’s highly overrated.”

Sheppard leaned in, his breath warm against Cam’s neck. “I know a little roadhouse out in the desert. You ready to go for a drive?”

Cam shuddered, let himself think about what that voice would sound like pitched low under the canopy of the sky, nothing but the stars above them and the tick of an engine slowly cooling to distract him from the touch of Sheppard’s skin against his. He hadn’t made out with a stranger in more years than he could count, hadn’t done it in a car in even longer, but hey, _Vegas_ , he thought. “Depends on what you’re driving,” he said instead, and let Sheppard lead him out into the still-hot evening to claim his car

When the valet drove up in a ’74 Camaro, faded red and beat to shit but purring like lounge act tigers, he said nothing, just climbed into the car and waited for Sheppard to slip the kid a couple of bills.

Sometimes, these things worked out.

 

*

 **(Area 51, present day)**  
Groom Lake, Nevada looks like most of the rest of Nevada: mountains scrubbed into hills by water and time, worn-looking and patched with gray vegetation, the lake itself mirror-bright under the pitiless sun. Cam rolls his shoulders and sits up, wishing he had a bottle of water and a handful or so of the ibuprofen tucked away safely in the back of the SUV.

He’d spent plenty of time here, first as a test pilot and then as squadron commander; they’d flown the 302s out of the big hangars at Area 51 by night, mostly to avoid the conspiracy theorists who lurked in the hills snapping surreptitious photos for the other nuts on the internet. After the crash, of course, he hadn’t been back. Landry’d had his gear – the non- classified parts, which pretty much meant his coffee mug and a stuffed alien Sam Carter gave him when he got promoted - boxed up and sent to his mother when his medical discharge came through.

He doesn’t know how he feels about driving through the gates again after all this time, but when Escort A glances over at him, one eyebrow arching up from behind his sunglasses, Cam shrugs. “Place hasn’t changed a bit,” he says cheerfully. “Love what you’ve done with the razor wire, though.”

There’s a snort from the back seat. “Fucking internet. Every whack job on the _planet_ showed up the last time they found water on Mars or some such crap – hadda beef up security just so General Landry could walk his dog.”

“That thing still alive?” The general’s dog had been the unofficial base mascot. Walking MacArthur was a task as universally hated as KP. Cam only did it once.

“Nah – he’s up to Mac 3.0, last I heard.”

“Good to know.”

The SUV pulls around to an unmarked beige building in a sea of other low beige buildings and rolls to a stop. Escort A switches it off and pops the automatic locks, and Cam unlatches his seatbelt and climbs out, stretching his spine unobtrusively. There’s a hot wind kicking sand against his skin and he grimaces in the sudden glare of the sun. Climbing out behind him, Escort B appears to be on the phone. From the change in his demeanor, shoulders thrown back and spine rigid, Cam suspects the general is the party on the other end.

“After you, sir.” Escort B folds his phone into his pocket and nods politely at Cam, pointing toward the beige-painted door. “General Landry’s waiting for you.”

Inside, the place is meat-locker cold and smells of disinfectant and something else Cam can’t quite identify. He glances around, trying not to look too curious: he’s never been in this particular building before, doesn’t remember it from any of the classified base maps. There’s nothing on the walls to tell him where he is, no old photos of planes or smiling groups of pilots, no cases full of medals. The building, for all intents and purposes, might be a temporary structure destined to be torn down before anyone can move in and set up a philodendron.

Two corridors later, a door swings slowly open and a rush of ozone-scented air pours into the hallway. It’s followed by an erect figure sporting an iron-gray brush cut and a supremely pissed-off expression.

“Sheriff Mitchell.” The frown drops off General Landry’s face, replaced by a distant, formal smile. “Thank you for agreeing to come down.”

Cam steps forward and puts out his right hand. “Couldn’t pass up free tickets to the reunion tour, now could I, General?” Not a fishing trip, then, if he’d been in any doubt. Or rather, the kind of fishing trip where the prey’s relationship to water is incidental.

Landry scowls and ushers Cam inside, leaving both escorts in the hall. Once the door is closed, he crosses the small room to lean against a desk that looks as if it was moved into the room that morning, one leg askew on the tiled floor and its scarred top hastily dusted by someone not usually paid to do those things. Landry settles into the room’s single chair, as seemingly comfortable as if he were back in his old digs with his mahogany table and his framed photos, and steeples his fingers. “I got a little project for you, Mitchell.”

“So I gathered, General. You going to fill me in or are we gonna play _Twenty Questions_ for another couple hours?” Cam stretches, trying unobtrusively to head off a cramp and failing as his spine pops loudly.

Landry glances up, frowning, and Cam waves a hand at him. “Sorry, General, too many hours in the same position and I –“

“Dammit, son, why didn’t you say something?” He picks up the phone on his desk and barks an order for coffee and another chair at whoever answers.

When the chair shows up, Cam sits down gingerly, leaning forward to stretch out the muscles in his lower back. The cramp eases, and he sits back just as there’s another knock on the door. It’s the coffee this time, and he takes the cup from Landry’s aide with a quick smile.

She nods carefully. “Anything else, sir?”

“Has Dr. McKay gotten here yet?”

“Just arrived, sir.”

Landry grimaces. “Good to know,” he says drily, and Cam hides a smile as Helen takes herself out of the room.

The coffee is good, strong and hot, but the general sets his aside untouched, and Cam finally leans forward to put his own half-finished cup on the desk. Better to get the show on the road so he can get back to his own coffeemaker, he tells himself. “So, General –“ he starts, but Landry pushes his chair back from the desk and stands up.

“If I leave McKay in there too long there’s no telling what Sheppard is going to do,” he mutters. “Come on, Mitchell, here’s where you come in.” He strides across the room and pulls open the door, but Cam just stares at him.

 _Sheppard_? “John Sheppard, sir?” he finally gets out over the roaring in his ears. The fuck is Sheppard doing at Area 51?

“Detective John Sheppard, yes,” Landry says, and Cam can see the questions crowding into the general’s sharp eyes. He needs to head this one off, and quickly.

He clears his throat briefly and pushes himself to his feet. “Met him at a law enforcement conference last year,” he says, hoping his voice sounds something close to normal. “Interests of inter-agency cooperation, sir. Most of our criminals have Vegas addresses.”

Landry, still looking far too sharply at the flush Cam’s trying to keep off his face, nods. “I’m sure they do, son.”

Footsteps in the hall draw closer and then doppler away, and Cam inclines his head toward the door. “Sir, I’d just as soon get back up to Goldfield today, before Val decides her doctor’s orders are actually just guidelines –“ he lets his voice trail off, hoping Landry can take that thought out to its logical conclusion instead of wondering why Cam had reacted to the mention of John Sheppard. He really, _really_ shouldn’t have let Landry talk him into this.

Not when he’d just gotten used to the idea he wasn’t going to see Sheppard again.

*

**(Las Vegas, six months earlier)**

Sheppard drove hard and fast, handling the heavy V-8 with neat economical movements that made Cam wonder if he’d been a pilot in a previous life. “Nice wheels,” he said, watching Sheppard’s long fingers tighten around the steering wheel.

“Thanks. Thought about trading her in on a Prius but just couldn’t do it.” Sheppard’s voice was nasal and slow, and shouldn’t have sent tendrils of arousal down Cam’s spine.

“Where are we going? he asked, more to cover the fact that he was squirming against the car’s dusty upholstery than for any real interest in knowing the answer. “Not that the desert ain’t pretty this time of night.”

Sheppard laughed but didn’t say anything, and Cam turned his head to stare out the window at the hills pacing them along the highway. The desert _was_ pretty this time of night, especially with the moon hanging in the eastern sky and dusting the rocky ground in silver and jet. Cam had moved up to Goldfield when the sheriff’s job had come open a few years back, stayed and run for office once the appointment had run out, and at first he’d wondered what people saw in the desert landscape that made them want to live in it and paint pictures. He’d seen the appeal of the big Western sky right away, but sky could be had anywhere, as his mother had reminded him, more than once.

But the desert, no, the desert was another thing, and Cam had come to like it, and more importantly, had learned to read it even better than he had the heavens with their infinity of space. The desert could be touched; it tasted of iron and copper and salt and gave up secrets and tiny fossil creatures in hard measure, and Cam thinks that when he dies, the desert will be a good place for his bones.

Maybe catching the drift of his thoughts, Sheppard put his foot on the brake and hauled the wheel hard to the left, fishtailing them onto a dirt road that Cam would’ve missed if he hadn’t been startled into paying attention.

“No, seriously, Sheppard, where are we going?” He felt a momentary flash of panic and forced it down. Hell of a lot of trouble to go to, if Sheppard was planning a robbery, and he was as confident as he could be that the spark between them was coming from both sides, so. That left – letting it all play out, the car, Sheppard, and the vast sweep of the Mojave desert.

Cam settled further into his seat, not missing the quick sideways glance Sheppard threw him, or the way his eyes traveled down Cam’s body to rest, however fleetingly, at the bulge in his crotch. _Yeah, okay_ , he thought, and waited for Sheppard to bring the car to a stop.

*

**(Area 51, present day)**

Landry leads him through a maze of corridors, finally stopping outside a door guarded by a Marine larger than either A or B carrying a weapon Cam hasn’t seen before, deep metallic gray and shimmering. Cam puts a hand on Landry’s arm before he can trigger the door.

“General. What am I supposed to say to Sheppard?” Since, obviously, _long time no see_ is out of the question, as is _you don’t call, you don’t write_ , both of which statements Cam has typed into his phone and deleted more than once this summer.

The marine steps back and stares down the featureless corridor in the opposite direction. Landry watches him for a moment, then turns back to Cam. “All we need you to do is get him to sign an NDA.”

Cam boggles at him. “That’s it? A non-disclosure? You dragged me all the way down here to do paperwork?”

Landry snorts and waves a key card over the door sensor. The door sensor slides open, and he motions Cam into another beige corridor. “He seems to think it’s a jurisdictional issue, but we need the NDA before we can let him go.” They stop in front of a glassed-in conference room, and Cam can see a figure in a crumpled linen jacket slouched into a chair pushed back from the room’s single table. It’s Sheppard, all right: even from the back, he’d know that messy dark hair anywhere.

His hands curl into fists at his sides and painstakingly, muscle by muscle, he relaxes them. “Have you tried explaining why you need the NDA?”

Landry looks at him as if retirement hasn’t done anything for his IQ. “I’d need an NDA to tell him that, son,” he says mildly, but before he can add anything, Rodney McKay bustles up to them.

“Mitchell.” McKay glances between them and then at the man in the room. “I’m not here to play good cop-bad cop with this –“ he starts, and Landry cuts him off.

“Nobody wants you to _play_ anything, Doctor McKay. I asked Sheriff Mitchell to come down here as a representative of the law enforcement community and –“ McKay starts to bluster, but a frown from the general shuts him up. “—as a former 302 pilot, to see if he couldn’t talk to Sheppard without sending him straight to the tabloids.”

There’s a heavy silence, and McKay puts his chin up. “I never –“

“—be that as it may, Doctor, perhaps we could let Mitchell here give it a shot?”

Something of what they’re saying, or McKay’s agitated movements, must get through to the man in the room, because the next thing he knows, Sheppard has turned around in his chair and is staring through the glass, straight into Cam’s eyes.

Cam’s first impression is of exhaustion, the shadow of his beard stretching long past five o’clock and his jacket hanging off his shoulders in weary folds. There’s a bruise high on one cheekbone and a familiar smirk on his lips, but Cam can see, too, the moment Sheppard recognizes him, a look that hardens almost imperceptibly into suspicion before Cam tears his eyes away.

General Landry drops a hand onto Cam’s shoulder, nodding toward the door. “Paperwork’s in there,” he says. “Standard boilerplate, highly classified, yadda yadda. He’s ex-military – he’ll know what it means.”

“Find out exactly how much he saw –“ McKay breaks in, and Cam has finally had enough. He pulls away from Landry and crosses his arms, staring icily down at McKay.

“Of what, McKay? How much he saw of _what_? What are you trying to get him not to disclose, for fuck’s sake?” Inside the conference room, Sheppard appears to be watching them, leaning back in his chair. Cam doesn’t think he can hear them but right at the moment, he doesn’t care.

He glances between McKay and Landry, who seem to be trying not to look at each other, and down the hall at the guard carrying the weapon he’s never seen before, and all of a sudden, it’s like the ceiling has opened, dropping shoes and pennies both. “God dammit. You people let something through, didn’t you? You let something through, Sheppard found it, and now you’re trying to – what, General? What are you trying to do?”

*

**(Las Vegas, six months earlier)**

The Camaro jolted around a small rise and lurched to a stop. Sheppard switched off the ignition and dropped his hands to his thighs, staring straight ahead as night settled around the car. Outside, there was a faint glow coming from the direction they’d been heading, but there didn’t seem to be anything else worth driving out here for. Unless the other side of the rise was concealing the entrance to Middle Earth, which Cam doubted; they weren’t that far from Area 51, but as far as he could tell, Sheppard had driven them more east than north, and -- _shit_.

“I know where we are,” he said to Sheppard, and Sheppard’s stern profile turned toward him

“Do you now?” Smiling, he looked younger, in spite of the creases around his eyes. “Where are we then?”

Cam swung his door open and dropped a boot onto the rocky ground. “Can we walk out there?” He was pretty sure he was going to lose whatever points he’d built up, but he couldn’t help it. “I haven’t been down here in years, but I always wanted to see the place at night. Umm – do you have a flashlight?”

In answer, Sheppard leaned across him to open the glove box. Close up, he smelled faintly of sweat, even more faintly of cigarettes and whiskey and cold night air, and Cam held himself utterly still until Sheppard, reluctantly, it seemed, slid back into his own seat. He handed the flashlight to Cam. “Follow me,” he said, swinging open his door and climbing out of the car. “There’s a path.”

The path, it turned out, was short enough, leading them in a long loop around the rise until they stood at the edge of a high bluff. Far below, the river canyon was awash in light, the long sweep of the dam an unearthly white against the dark rocks. Upstream, the dam’s intake towers rose stolidly out of the water, and at its base, the massive Art Deco power plant hummed away, a complex tangle of steel and concrete and light.

“Holy shit,” Cam breathed, and Sheppard moved behind him, sliding one hand onto his hip. He leaned into the subtle pressure and Sheppard tightened his hand, pulling Cam back against him.

“I was lying about the roadhouse,” he said.

Cam huffed out a laugh and turned to face him. “I gathered that.” He waved a hand behind him. “I’m prepared to forgive you, though.”

“Oh, good,” Sheppard said indistinctly, and leaned in to fit his mouth to Cam’s.

*

**(Area 51, present day)**

“We’re trying to save the world.” McKay answers for Landry, color burning in his cheeks. “Remember that hive ship a few months back? Oh, no, you wouldn’t, would you, _Sheriff_ , because you retired. You’re not in this fight any longer, so you will excuse me when I tell you I have better things to do than stand here arguing with you.”

He lifts his chin a notch, bristling at Cam until Landry snaps his fingers at the guard. Yeah, Cam had retired, his body broken nearly beyond the power of his doctors to put him back on his feet. He would never again climb into the cockpit of a 302 and it was more than he could bring himself to do, to lead that fleet from behind a desk. Going into law enforcement, even in sprawling deserted Esmeralda County, meant he still got up every day, wrapped his hands around the wheel of his truck and took himself out to the far edges of his world to keep it safe.

Cam shoves his hands into the pockets of his chinos. _Safe._ What a fucking joke.

Inside the room, Sheppard is watching them intently, unmoving, and that basilisk stare finally makes his decision for him. Sheppard had made his choice that night in the desert. He doesn’t need Cam, has never needed Cam. “You know what? He’s all yours, Doctor,” he says to McKay, who spins on his heel and shoves his way into the conference room.

“General, it’s been nice seeing you. Stop by for coffee, you’re ever up in my little neck of the woods. You want to lend me a horse, I’ll get out of your hair now.” He turns his head, his eyes meeting Sheppard’s one last time before the guard walks up, one hand pressed to his communicator.

“Ten minutes, General. They’ll bring the car around, get the Colonel here home.” His eyes, wide and pale blue under sandy brows, shift toward the conference room. “Detective Sheppard staying with us?”

General Landry follows his gaze. Across the table from McKay, Sheppard appears to be shrinking into himself. “Ask Dr. McKay.” He puts a hand on Cam’s shoulder and points him toward the door they’d come in through. “Probably wouldn’t have worked, whatever you were going to say to him.”

“Probably not, sir.” He hadn’t been able to get Sheppard even to agree to call the next day. Cam’s chances of persuading him he hadn’t seen a – “Wraith, sir? Did McKay say something about Wraith?”

Cam had read the mission reports when the Atlantis team first established contact.

Landry sighs. “Couple months back. We took out a hive, but McKay thinks at least one might have made it through. Sheppard ran across it by accident, investigating a couple of strange deaths. We sent a team in, just in case.”

“And you think the survivor’s got something up its sleeve?”

Landry shakes his head and pushes through the final door. “Wouldn’t you do whatever you could, in the same situation?”

Outside, the day has turned fiercely hot, and there’s a wind blowing dust and trash into tiny eddies in the parking lot. Cam watches one spin furiously and then break apart, scattering bits of paper across the cracked concrete. “What happens to Sheppard?”

“At this point, he’s just another civilian. And McKay’s a bright boy – he’ll think of something. Sheppard’ll be back on the road to Vegas before nightfall, mark my words.”

When Escort B shows up, a few minutes later, Cam’s more than ready to sink into the SUV’s lush leather upholstery. B hands him a bottle of water, switches on the satellite radio system, and it’s not until he’s back in Esmeralda County, just about to crack open a beer and carry it out to the deck that his phone rings.

“McKay said something about needing power. I’ve tracked it to near where we were that night – you remember the power station?” The voice is tinny and shot through with static. Cam sets the beer down carefully and feels around behind him until his fingertips collide with one of his kitchen chairs. He lowers himself into it.

_Sheppard._

The phone crackles, and Cam answers hurriedly, not wanting to lose the connection before he figures out what’s going on. “Yeah, up at the dam.” He glances at his watch. There’s no way he can make it back to Vegas, not in time to stop whatever Sheppard’s chasing. “You’re that far east?”

“No, pretty close, though.” There’s a hissing silence. “I still don’t understand what that - _thing_ needs the power for but I figured out where he can get it.”

Cam remembers their drive that night, the electrical towers that sprouted from every hillside west of Hoover Dam, lines stretching out over the desert to Vegas and to California beyond it.

The power grid. Of course.

“Tell me what highway you’re on and I’ll call McKay. And Sheppard?”

“Yeah,” Sheppard says, and then there’s nothing on the line except static.

*

**(Las Vegas, six months earlier)**

Sheppard kissed like every cliché Cam’s seen on TV, eyes closed and his hands clamped firmly on Cam’s ass, no tongue and an invisible barrier between Cam and Sheppard’s dry chapped lips. After a moment, increasingly confused, Cam pulled back.

“Okay, what the hell?”

Sheppard’s eyes flew open. “I thought –“ he gestured between them. When Cam didn’t say anything, he jammed his hands in his pockets and started walking away from the bluff.

Cam watched him go for another long moment. If there’d been any other way of getting home, he thought, he’d be on it, heading fast in another direction and not looking back. But Sheppard and his beat to shit Camaro were _it_ out here unless he wanted to hike down to Hoover Dam and beg a lift from a tourist in twelve hours or so.

Yeah, not gonna happen. He’d already paid for his free coffee at the conference, and besides, lousy technique or not, he was still halfway to hard. He picked up his pace, catching up with Sheppard as he was reaching for the Camaro’s door.

“Sheppard, wait.”

Sheppard turned. In the bright moonlight, his face was shadowed and grave, deep lines etching his forehead. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said stiffly, and Cam could see his shoulders tensing under the thin linen jacket he wore.

“Hey, no,” Cam said. “No harm, no foul. It’s just – there’s another way to do this, you know?”

Sheppard canted a glance at him and moved back to lean against the car. “Yeah?” he said, dropping his shoulders. Cam gazed at him for a moment, letting the heat build in his eyes as they traveled up Sheppard’s long lean frame, widening as they took in the little twitch of Sheppard’s hips, rolling against the warm steel of the car, and finally settling on his mouth. It’s an eyefuck is what it was, and Cam could see the effect it was having as Sheppard’s pupils widened and his mouth opened slightly, posture shifting until he was plastered against the side of the car, and he stepped closer, close enough to feel the heat pouring off Sheppard’s chest.

“Oh yeah,” he murmured, telling himself privately that this wasn’t ridiculous _at all_ , and reached up a hand to brush against Sheppard’s jaw. Sheppard turned into his touch and Cam slid his fingers into the other man’s soft dark hair, using the leverage to urge Sheppard closer.

There was a second’s worth of resistance, and then Sheppard sighed and gave in, and this time, fitting his mouth to Sheppard’s, Cam could feel the warmth of his skin and taste the whiskey he’d been drinking. He opened his mouth and deepened the kiss, licking into Sheppard’s mouth until Sheppard groaned and slid a hand into the small of Cam’s back. His fingers teased at the back of Cam’s waistband and Cam sucked in a breath as Sheppard’s hand slid beneath his belt and past the elastic of his boxers to skim the curve of his ass.

As if Cam had given permission, Sheppard tightened his fingers and urged Cam up against him, reaching between them with his other hand and letting the movement of their hips curve his fingers around Cam’s dick. Cam tore his mouth away from Sheppard’s and looked down, watching Sheppard’s long fingers tangle in the fly of his pants.

“Good, good,” Sheppard murmured, buckles and buttons a flurry of hardware, and then Cam slid his hand out of Sheppard’s hair and reached for his zipper, and Sheppard moaned and thrust up into Cam’s palm.

“Here?” Cam said, working his way past denim and incongruously-plaid boxers to free Sheppard’s dick, and Sheppard looked up then, and smirked at him, wrapping his own hand around Cam.

“We could head back to Vegas, hit an all night buffet, or –“ He jacked Cam slowly, calloused palm sliding up Cam’s length, and Cam swore and leaned back far enough to see the glow from the power station against the hills behind Sheppard, breathing hard.

“Nah. I’m good here. Just checking,” he said, and matched Sheppard’s movements until they were both close to the edge and then crushed his mouth against Sheppard’s, hot and messy, and jerked him until Sheppard came, thrusting and wet in Cam’s hand, and then followed him, his senses whiting out as Sheppard groaned his release into Cam’s mouth, and collapsed against him.

An hour or so later - or maybe just a few minutes, Cam wasn’t entirely sure – he lifted his head and rolled off Sheppard’s still-heaving chest to prop himself against the car. The night was cold, so with a rueful glance at the mess on his belly, he zipped his pants back up, leaving his shirt untucked. Next to him, Sheppard did the same thing, then opened the car’s door and reached under the driver’s seat. He fished around for a moment then emerged, waving a half-full pint of Maker’s Mark.

Cam shot him dubious look. “I figured you were the kind of guy who keeps a bottle in his desk –“ he started, and Sheppard laughed. It was an ugly sound, startling and harsh in the quiet night.

“Yeah, I don’t spend much time at my desk.”

Cam chewed on the inside of his lip, watching Sheppard as he drank. “About that,” he started, then shook his head as Sheppard offered him the bottle. “Conference tomorrow, remember?” Then, as Sheppard’s smirk faded, he reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the business cards he’d shoved in there before leaving his room. “My cell phone’s on here, you feel like getting together again.” In for a dime, he figured, but he was still surprised when Sheppard capped the bottle, tossed it into the back seat and took his card.

He turned it over, stared at the logo for a moment, then shoved it into his pocket. “We’ll see. Bad guys take a break, I may get the night off.” He grinned at Cam and waved a hand back toward the city. “Come on, I’ll drop you back at your hotel.”

*

**(Esmeralda County, Nevada, present day)**

Cam fits the light onto the top of his truck and backs down his driveway, heading for I-95. He puts on a burst of speed as he hits the highway, and once he’s safely in the fast lane, holds up his phone and dials Landry.

The general picks up right away. “Did McKay get my message?”

“Yeah, they scrambled a couple of fighters a few minutes ago. I’m expecting kill confirmation shortly.” Landry sounds distracted, his attention clearly on the screen in front of him. There’s a burst of noise and then Landry lets out a breath.

“General?” Cam says, pressing down on the gas, wishing for any number of impossible things, a helicopter, Asgard beaming technology, better cell reception in the desert, _something_ that would tell him Sheppard was still alive.

“Son, I gotta go,” Landry says, his voice clipped. “But the target was acquired – we’re safe, for now.”

“Sheppard?” Cam says, hating the desperation in his voice, but the line’s gone dead, and all he can do is drive.

Sheppard had dropped him at the hotel that night and driven off without another word. Cam never figured out what he had or hadn’t said, but he’d never forgotten the process of watching Sheppard, step by step, rebuild the carapace Cam hadn’t realized he was seeing until it fell away, out there under the stars.

Now, three hours later, he's driving toward what looks like the smoking ruins of an Airstream trailer. He can see Sheppard’s Camaro but no sign of Sheppard. He wonders if he got away, if McKay had sent a chopper down after the jets, if the card he’d given him was still in Sheppard’s wallet, if he’ll ever know.

He parks his truck and pulls out a bottle of water. The scene's been cleaned, nothing left but spare parts - even the shell casings that, judging from the number of bullet holes in the car, must have been littering the ground - are gone. Gingerly pulling the passenger door open, Cam peers inside. The glove box is empty, but a glance at the tape deck shows him that whoever’d tossed the car hadn’t bothered with Sheppard’s Neolithic tech. He pulls the tape out, pockets it, and walks back to his truck. He’ll never get the answers to any of the bigger questions, but for now he’s got a cassette tape of Johnny Cash’s last album, and once he gets home, he’s pretty sure he’ll be able to find someone to play it for him.

In Cam’s experience, occasionally the universe lets that happen.


End file.
